As seen in the news, on July 19, 2018 Our Lady of Angels Regional Catholic School in Morton, PA was destroyed by a catastrophic fire. The teachers have lost everything in their classrooms and the students have lost their home.
The courageous first responders brought the fire under control and extinguished it with no loss of life or injuries, but the school sustained heavy damage, forcing it to cease operations at the site for the upcoming school year for approximately 400 students from kindergarten to eighth grade.
“The fire which severely damaged Our Lady of Angels School in Morton (OLA) last night is a moment of deep sadness for parish and school families as well as the Catholic community at large in the region,” read a statement by Archdiocese of Philadelphia spokesman Ken Gavin. “We are grateful to the firefighters and first responders who worked tirelessly to extinguish the blaze, many of whom are alumni of OLA. It is a blessing that no one was injured as a result of the fire.”
That Wednesday night’s fire was not the first to hit the parish and school. When a new Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church was opened at the site in December 1989, the original church building it replaced and the attached rectory were destroyed by a fire in January that year. It was reported that a statue of Mary was saved from that fire, as well.
Of course, the school have lost all of its computer systems, servers and student, teacher data.
What you didn’t see or hear in the news is the fact they had no viable backup and disaster recovery system in place!!! We have heard that story way too many times, especially recently, in the wake of ransomware wreaking havoc to all kinds of networks, large and small.
Had the school had an intelligent business continuity solution, it would have been so much easier to get back on their feet.
Hopefully the powers that be will plan and implement appropriate BDR solution, not only to protects their critical data and systems at all times, but to allow to recover from such calamities in expeditious fashion.